Deep Extragalactic VIsible Legacy Survey (DEVILS): Identification of AGN through SED Fitting and the Evolution of the Bolometric AGN Luminosity Function
Date Issued
2022
Author(s)
Thorne, Jessica E.
•
Robotham, Aaron S. G.
•
Davies, Luke J. M.
•
Bellstedt, Sabine
•
Brown, Michael J. I.
•
Croom, Scott M.
•
•
Groves, Brent
•
Jarvis, Matt J.
•
Shabala, Stanislav S.
•
Seymour, Nick
•
Whittam, Imogen H.
•
Bravo, Matias
•
Cook, Robin H. W.
•
Driver, Simon P.
•
Holwerda, Benne
•
Phillipps, Steven
•
Siudek, Malgorzata
Abstract
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are typically identified through radio,
mid-infrared, or X-ray emission or through the presence of broad and/or narrow
emission lines. AGN can also leave an imprint on a galaxy's spectral energy
distribution (SED) through the re-processing of photons by the dusty torus.
Using the SED fitting code ProSpect with an incorporated AGN component, we fit
the far ultraviolet to far-infrared SEDs of $\sim$494,00 galaxies in the
D10-COSMOS field and $\sim$230,000 galaxies from the GAMA survey. By combining
an AGN component with a flexible star formation and metallicity implementation,
we obtain estimates for the AGN luminosities, stellar masses, star formation
histories, and metallicity histories for each of our galaxies. We find that
ProSpect can identify AGN components in 91 per cent of galaxies pre-selected as
containing AGN through narrow-emission line ratios and the presence of broad
lines. Our ProSpect-derived AGN luminosities show close agreement with
luminosities derived for X-ray selected AGN using both the X-ray flux and
previous SED fitting results. We show that incorporating the flexibility of an
AGN component when fitting the SEDs of galaxies with no AGN has no significant
impact on the derived galaxy properties. However, in order to obtain accurate
estimates of the stellar properties of AGN host galaxies, it is crucial to
include an AGN component in the SED fitting process. We use our derived AGN
luminosities to map the evolution of the AGN luminosity function for $0
Volume
509
Issue
4
Start page
4940
Issn Identifier
0035-8711
Rights
open.access
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